Last year, PULSE and fisoc began a pilot to gauge financial institutions’ interest in a comprehensive solution for offering rewards and strengthening relationships with their account holders. During the pilot, Buzz Points was aligned with Discover® Debit, managed by PULSE, to offer rewards that encourage consumers to shop locally and support merchants in their communities. Participating cardholders earned reward points that could be redeemed for gift cards or donated to charitable causes.

Based on the pilot’s success, Buzz Points is now being made available to PULSE financial institutions in select markets. Plans are under way to begin introducing Buzz Points to other PULSE participants later this year.

“Our loyalty platform is an innovative program featuring meaningful rewards and discounts for consumers, while benefiting local businesses,” said Jay Valanju, fisoc CEO. “In this digital age, our solution enables PULSE to offer its financial institution participants a fully turn-key rewards program. This will provide a distinct advantage to PULSE in the highly competitive debit industry.”

Offering Buzz Points is one more example of the strategic investments PULSE is making in products and services to help its participants maximize their debit portfolios.

“After recent regulations significantly changed the debit landscape, we were seeking an innovative rewards platform to help our issuers boost cardholder loyalty, encourage debit use and improve their bottom lines,” said Judith McGuire, PULSE Executive Vice President of Product Management. “The program had to demonstrate value to both issuers and merchants. It also had to be easy to implement and help issuers build relationships with consumers and merchants. The Buzz Points program delivers on all of our criteria.”